"Yeeees, I can see that if it's anthrax or scorpions you should probably choose the scorpions. It's just that I don't actually believe that it really is anthrax versus scorpions. It think it's shitty stuff versus good stuff."

"Fool that you are. It has ALWAYS been anthrax versus scorpions."

"It used to be anthrax versus kittens."

"Oh, KITTENS. Kittens, YES. Look around you, do you see any kittens? NO. Choose scorpions, kitten-lover."

"Scorpions are bad."

"ANTHRAX LOVER! YOU LOVE ANTHRAX!"

"No, I don't love anthrax, I think anthrax is bad. I can see that scorpions are better than anthrax, but that doesn't mean I should treat scorpions as if they're good."

"Why do you hate scorpions? You're a neurotic scorpion hater. You have scorpophobia. You're paranoid about scorpion stings! You're weird and mad and stuff!"

"Dude, scorpion stings are actually unambiguously BAD, okay? This is a position that has been well understood for some time."

"EVIDENCE."

"Sigh. No, I'm not going to go and get evidence for you that scorpions are bad. They are just bad. We probably can't exterminate them from the face of the earth, and actually probably shouldn't, but that doesn't mean we should choose them."

"Well what sort of kitten do you suppose is going to make the grade, huh? Where are all the kittens?"

"There's no point in my bringing my kittens to your scorpion nest, they'll all get stung and die."

"Well, there you go! HA HA! You've admitted defeat! If you can't have scorpions and kittens at the same time, obviously that means that scorpions are better than kittens! You need to choose scorpions."

"I don't understand why you can't choose kittens."

"Oh KITTENS. Kittens my ass. What good are kittens against anthrax?"

"I don't really see how scorpions are any better. The only reason you chose scorpions is because you're scared of scorpions as well as anthrax and you think that means anthrax is going to be scared of scorpions. Anthrax isn't scared of anything. Actually, scorpions aren't scared of much either, but that doesn't mean they're worth anything. I think if you want to deal with anthrax you have to DEAL WITH ANTHRAX, not choose scorpions. Vaccination's good. That's why I propose kittens AND vaccinations."

(Long pause.) "It's polio, isn't it? You love polio."

"No."

"You want a pony."

"I do like ponies. But kittens are cheaper and simpler to feed. If I wanted a pony I would have said so."

"You love small pox."

"NO I DO NOT LOVE SMALL POX."

"You're so aggressive! You're a troll!"

"I am NOT a troll. I just want a clear explanation out of you regarding why you think we have to have scorpions."

"How many times do you have to be told!?!?! If we don't have scorpions, we'll all get ANTHRAX."

"I don't see what's so different about us that we get either scorpions or anthrax. There are people all over the place that have neither. Look at Sweden! They have flamingos."

"We're nothing like Sweden!"

"That's because we never put any effort into TRYING to be like Sweden. Do you think Sweden got their flamingos without any effort? They got fed up with anthrax and scorpions years ago. They decided to get nice things that they actually liked instead."

"Flamingos are totally lame. Who feels threatened by flamingos?"

"Why are we supposed to choose THREATENING things? Sweden didn't choose threatening things, they chose vaccinations and flamingos and now they're really happy. They have Ikea as well. When was the last time you saw a scorpion go to Ikea?"

"Scorpions are supposed to be MEAN. If we don't get mean scorpions we won't look frightening to the anthrax!"

"We've discussed this, anthrax doesn't get frightened. Anthrax just wants to infect everybody. I have NEVER understood why you think scorpions are a solution to anthrax! They don't even affect anthrax!"

"You love Ebola."

"This is useless. It's like talking to a poorly programmed robot. ARE you a poorly programmed robot?"

"You love cancer."

"No. I don't love cancer."

"If we choose kittens, we'll all get anthrax."

"All my kittens are vaccinated. Most of your scorpions have anthrax."

"EVIDENCE."

"Look over there. Lots of them are dead. Did you forget that lots of them suddenly died? They scarpered about all over the place like creepy little vermin just before getting anthrax and dying. Not particularly surprising, really, as you can't vaccinate scorpions."

The Third Way supports right wing ideology. The section of DU that does not want right wing ideology is not going to change their minds because of being called crackpots. That's all there is to it.

By all means, continue to post junk and troll the site and post flamebait, but all you'll have done is post junk, wasting everybody else's time.

Those who oppose the Third Way don't want right wing ideas in their government. If you support the Third Way, you do. That's it. It means that you're right wing. This site isn't a right wing site. At least, it's not supposed to be.

... is a political process whereby elements of a political party, usually in a two party system (it isn't confined to the US) advocate a compromise between capitalism and socialism, aiming for a middle ground.

In the United States, "Third Way" adherents embrace fiscal conservatism to a greater extent than traditional social liberals, and advocate some replacement of welfare with workfare, and sometimes have a stronger preference for market solutions to traditional problems (as in pollution markets), while rejecting pure laissez-faire economics and other libertarian positions. The Third Way style of governing was firmly adopted and partly redefined during the administration of President Bill Clinton. With respect to U.S. presidents, the term "Third Way" was introduced by political scientist Stephen Skowronek. "Third Way" presidents 'undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance. Think of Nixon’s economic policies, which were a continuation of Johnson's "Great Society"; Clinton’s welfare reform and support of capital punishment; and Obama’s pragmatic centrism, reflected in his embrace, albeit very recent, of entitlements reform.'

What this typically entails is "triangulation" - adopting policies more akin to the opposition's than one's own in an effort to gain votes from the middle or the opposition's core voters themselves.

Just in case anyone here doesn't understand the term. There seem to be one or two of you knocking around.

The Scottish National Party(SNP) in Scotland is poised to wipe out Labour (the major UK left party)at the next general election. Why?

Because the SNP is further left than the Labour party now.

Also, the behaviour of some of the Labour activists during the independence referendum campaign was so foul that a vast number of diehard Labour supporters switched over to the SNP in disgust. The SNP's party membership is now 80,000 and rising (I realise that's small beans compared to the US, but for our country it's big, it's now larger than the other UK "third party", the Liberals, it's now the third largest party in the UK). The SNP has been in power for 7 years and proved that its primary interest is Scotland and its people. The Labour party's primary interest is the Labour party. Alex Salmond, First Minister and SNP leader (soon to step down) was basically the only major political leader in the UK that condemned the Iraq War from the start. He started winning and kept winning because he told the truth.

After Thatcher the right wing Tories were utterly obliterated from Scottish politics. Currently they hold one seat in Scotland. It's beginning to look like Labour is about to go the same way. Current projections suggest that they may end up with as few as four seats.

There is this thing that happens in Scotland when a political party does something we don't like.

We DESTROY THEM.

Why should we live under the rule of a body that does not represent us?

One of the results of this long term trend is that we now have our own Parliament. Labour gave it to us so as to buy our votes. Other developments that indicate our highly non-tactical and highly successful voting strategy include the recent referendum - Holyrood (Scottish Parliament) was set up as STV (single transferable vote) so that the SNP couldn't ever get in with an overall majority and take Scotland out of the UK. This has failed totally, the SNP gained an overall majority at Holyrood and is going to expand that majority at the next GE.

Scotland has free university education. Scotland has a properly NON-privatised Health Service. The SNP is protecting this. Labour, across the UK, is trying to fuck it all over. They are hypnotised by the right and are desperately copying them as much as possible. It's going to be a disaster for them. They've abandoned the working man, and the working man can see this perfectly well for himself.

Perpetual triangulation has cost Labour it's ace - Scotland. Labour used to be able to rely on at least 45 MPs from Scotland every general election and could concentrate their strategy on England. Taking Scotland for granted has destroyed them.

Labour's self-absorption and corruption were as plain as day. Everyone could see for themselves that these people were career politicians and wanted nothing to do with them. The new guy who is about to take over as the Scottish Labour leader (you can tell that it's going to be him because despite the fact that there are two other candidates for the leadership thy are getting absolutely no coverage at all in stark contrast to articles all over the "lefty" press about the Golden Child) is called Jim Murphy and he is already regarded as a buffoon by the Scottish electorate as he ran up an expenses bill of £1mil over junk and spent 9 years at uni without ever getting a degree.

What's your point, sibelian?

My point is this, DU - TRIANGULATION ONLY WORKS UP TO A POINT.

Labour started covetting the votes of the wealthy South. They got so into this that they STOPPED covetting the votes of the rest of the UK - they abandoned the working class. They had to discipline the party to stay on message so they could be presentable to the other demographics. The result? They abandoned their core principles and and have now lost their base. The SNP rose up from the ashes (nobody took them seriously even 10 years ago) and took prominence.

In Scotland we don't vote for the left. We have no interest in "the left". We voted for a robust health service, free prescriptions, smaller class sizes and above all a government that represents the people. That these are considered "left wing" by political junkies is of no consequence, what label you slap on these processes for the sake of internet arguments is irrelevant, it's what actually HAPPENS that counts, not what you call it. We voted for a government that understands that a nation is the land and it's people first and it's ideology second.

When a political party starts taking it's own fate more seriously than that of the people it represents it starts to lose. When I started telling my lefty friends over here in Scotland that the ground was about to shift, there were numerous pseudo-intellectuals flinging out the utterly trivial observation that if you don't win you can't do anything, this is allllll backwards, backwards, BACKWARDS - it's the wrong way round, THIS is the reality:

IF YOU DON'T GIVE YOUR VOTERS WHAT THEY WANT, YOU CAN'T WIN.

Nobody owes anybody their vote.

The Labour party is losing because it stopped listening to people and started listening to politicians. THAT'S why they're losing. They stopped kicking the ball towards the goal and spent their entire force on forever kicking the ball towards each other. It's now well understood all over Scotland that the Scottish Labour party is nothing more than a branch office of Westminster (which is now utterly despised all over the UK) and thoroughly corrupt. If your voters don't get anything out of you, why should they vote for you? They owe you nothing. They are not your tools or your property.

During the referendum I could feel this palpable rage in the left in Scotland, this weird, twisted thing where somehow they owned Scotland and what was happening wasn't "fair"... Scotland was their toy. Scotland began to understand this. Scotland stopped playing.

So. Do you think the US and the Democrats are any different?

Supposing the Dems took a leap of faith and stopped believing that the US is inherently right wing? Supposing they lost interest in corporate lobby groups and the mainstream media and started concentrating on engaging with the populace directly , as the SNP did? You currently have no third party.

Therefore Muslims are victims and consequently THE GOOD GUYS. And being nasty to the good guys isn't fair, even if they are doing exactly the same, or worse things, than the nasty Christians, because if they aren't THE GOOD GUYS then it means the Christians must be THE GOOD GUYS and we will all look very stupid.

Muslims get bombed so they are nice. OUR SYMPATHIES SHOULD BE WITH THE MUSLIMS.

"EVIL" AND "GOOD" ARE ATTRIBUTABLE ONLY TO CATEGORIES, NOT BEHAVIOURS.

Of the 5,981 suicides in 2012, an astonishing 4,590 (76%) were men. And yet while Britain has high-profile campaigns on, say, testicular cancer or driving safely, the biggest killer of men under 50 is not getting the attention it deserves.